Page 3018 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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systemic problems in our public hospital system. All this lot opposite can do is scoff. They have got absolutely no answers at all.
The Liberal opposition prefers an approach that devolves the management and governance of a hospital from that of bureaucratic oversight to an appointed board of management with a balance of necessary administrative and clinical knowledge and skills from across the community. Public hospitals are for the public. Why, then, should not the public have more of a say and be more represented? The hospital, through its chairman, will report directly to the minister, who will remain ultimately politically accountable. That is the thing, because currently they are not. Currently, these ministers, Katy Gallagher, Jon Stanhope and Simon Corbell, simply refuse to be held accountable for anything.
The CEO of the hospital will report, first and foremost, to his or her board and it is the board that will take key decisions in the policy and financial framework set by government, thus ensuring good and safe clinical practice and good patient outcomes. A board based approach will promote better decision making and a greater level of scrutiny and accountability. It will bring those who run the hospital much closer to the community that it serves and whose lives its decisions affect. Is that not what you want? Clearly, it is not.
I want to see our hospitals run well. We have more money in our health budget since self-government and yet we do not see the consistent improvements that should be made with the amount of money going into the system. Why not? Clearly—and it has been admitted by the government—it is a management problem, so we need to fix that. A board-based approach will bring those who run the hospital much closer to the community that it serves and whose lives the decisions affect. That can only improve patient care and community satisfaction. I commend the bill to the house.
Debate (on motion by Mr Corbell) adjourned to the next sitting.
Education—senior secondary system
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (12.01): I move:
That this Assembly notes:
(1) the ACT’s senior secondary system has a high success rate in delivering quality educational outcomes for the young people of the ACT;
(2) the review commissioned in 2005 by the ACT Government conducted by Atelier Learning Solutions Pty Ltd into Government Secondary Colleges, specifically:
(a) that consultation was undertaken in all colleges and three high schools including forums, meetings and surveys;
(b) the review made 14 recommendations over a wide range of areas impacting on colleges; and
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